Monday, August 12, 2013

Gurcharan Das's "The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle of Art of Dharma"

Gurcharan Das's book "The Difficulty of
Being Good: On the Subtle of Art of Dharma" subjects The Mahabharata to
rational scrutiny. Facing a middle-life crisis in his illustrious career, Das
embarked on the spiritual journey of seeking answers to questions that life
poses to everyone. He took the age-old Mahabharata for getting some clues to
his questions, but "Mahabharata raises more questions than providing
answers." Bhishma cannot answer Draupadi's questions regarding dharma (something
between morality, inherent nature and law) at the dice-game because dharma is so
subtle that it escapes easy answers. It is the beauty of our time-honored
religious and philosophical tradition that we are to question things as they
appear and not lazily submit to them. We have to use our "viveka" while
appraising even the gods. The gods or God and sons of gods as portrayed in the
epic are not paragons of virtue; rather they have inherent flaws to their
character which they exploit to bringing the result they favor.

Das goes into details of the lives of each major
character of the epic and analyzes their traits. He seems to be fascinated with
Yudhisthira, who tries to be good despite adverse situations that he has to constantly
face in his life and has to endure barbed comments by his friends and foes
alike for his ideal acts. Das's strength lies in his simplicity in telling
things and I really liked his down-to-earth approach in writing philosophy. It is
free from high-sounding jargons and opaque ideas which some pseudo-scholars
love to employ in their writing. Moreover, he provides relevant examples from
contemporary India and the world to drive his point home. He brings insights
from Western philosophers while making a point in his logic.

However, I also find Das guilty of careless interpretations
in the book. In the preface, he has interpreted chakra vyuha as lotus like formation
whereas that is what Padma vyuha denotes. I am not convinced with the very
first sentence of the book which claims, "The Mahabharata is the story of a futile and terrible war." He
has not substantiated the claim by explaining why the war was futile. The
Pandavas were trying to regain their lost territory of Indraprastha and
Duryodhana turned deaf ear to their peace proposals. There was no recourse left
and they had to gain independence from Kaurava tyranny. If this war is futile,
one could also claim that any war for independence is futile. Moreover, it
seems Das has inadvertently praised Duryodhana and Shakuni and seems to have
overlooked these evil characters' misdeeds. Das demands altruistic feelings
from Bhima in a hypothetical case of treading upon Duryodhana's gouty toe. This
sympathy for Duryodhana is unwarranted at this point. Duryodhana has some good
aspects to his character but his oveall bearing is bad and it was his bad
company that inspired even lofty Karna to hurl insults against helpless Draupadi.
I espouse Das's method of rationally interpreting an ancient text but feel that
he has gone too far in some cases.